DR Radio Billings Lose Frequency in 4Q 2013

The worst fourth-quarter results in Kantar/Response history leave 2013’s overall results down by almost 17 percent.

DR radio media billings for 2013 fell just short of the $40 million mark, closing out at $39,741,500 — a precipitous drop of 16.7 percent from 2012’s total of more than $47.7 million. And it was a stunningly bad fourth quarter that was responsible for nearly every penny of the year’s overall losses.

Kantar Media reports fourth-quarter 2013 DR radio media billings of $4,759,100, a 62.2-percent drop of $7.8 million when compared to 4Q 2012 — the total represents, by far, the worst fourth quarter since Kantar began providing its DR radio billings information to Response 10 years ago. Those fourth-quarter losses account for 98.3 percent of 2013’s overall drop.

Even the Losers

Fifteen of the 17 vertical categories reported losses in 4Q 2013, with two categories (“Correspondence Schools” and “Home and Building”) remaining stagnant at zero spending. The “best” performers during the quarter among the higher-spend categories were the “General” category, which dropped $166,300 (14.4 percent), and the “Drug and Toiletry” category, which lost $288,800 (26.1 percent).

Four categories that saw spending of less than $100,000 each in 4Q 2012 zeroed out in fourth-quarter 2013: “Apparel,” “Automotive and Travel,” “Business” and “Lawn, Garden, Seeds and Bulbs.” The “Household, Furniture and Appliances” ($3.1 million) and “Multiple Category Ad” ($2.1 million) categories suffered the worst dollar-on-dollar defeats.

Local Zero

The Local Radio outlet, which had been carrying the DR radio market of late, saw its bottom fall out in 4Q 2013, leaving one to wonder what exactly happened to the market (or what happened, perhaps, to Kantar’s measurement of the local radio space)? Local Radio’s $6.4 million decrease in spending not only meant the market itself lost 96.5 percent of its spending from the previous year’s fourth quarter, but also meant it was responsible for more than 82 percent of the quarter’s total loss for all of DR radio. With that, Network Radio jumped to nearly 95 percent of market share, even though it lost more than $1.1 million in spending from 4Q 2012.

The total number of measured unique DR radio campaigns aired during the fourth quarter dropped by 18, a 24.3-percent loss. The average money spent on a campaign based on the total dropped just more than 50 percent ($85,217), while the average money spent on a campaign outside the top 10 fared slightly better, losing 45.8 percent ($19,234).

Spending in the top 10 decreased 62.5 percent ($6.2 million), mirroring the quarter’s overall losses. Four campaigns from 4Q 2012’s top 10 carried over to 2013’s list, with REI leaping back into the No. 1 spot from No. 2 a year ago. Sleep Number enjoyed the best return to the top 10, landing at No. 2 for the quarter. ■

Kantar Media, formerly TNS MediaIntelligence, is the leading provider of strategic media and marketing information. Utilizing highly innovative tracking technologies, the company collects expenditure, occurrence and creative intelligence on millions of brands across 20 media. These figures are based on Kantar Media multimedia ad expenditure database across the following measured media: Local Radio, National Spot Radio and Network Radio. Figures do not contain public service announcement (PSA) data. For information about Kantar Media, call (212) 991-6000 or visit www.kantarmediana.com.